(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on September 21, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Train traffic is rising on the Chicago-area short line that Canadian National Railway absorbed this year, but CN told regulators it further reduced long train-caused delays at roadway crossings in August.
In its latest monthly report to the Surface Transportation Board – part of that agency’s unusual level of oversight in its December approval for CN to buy Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway — CN said stopped trains along EJ&E tracks plugged up road crossings just four times last month.
The carrier only reports road crossing stoppages that last at least 10 minutes, when trains stop across the intersections and block area commuters. That has triggered criticism from suburban activists, who fought the acquisition out of fear CN’s plans to build EJ&E train traffic will add congestion to their roads and hurt their lifestyle.
CN bought the short line to shift traffic out of clogged tracks in downtown Chicago onto EJ&E’s system that arcs westward around the city.
The long-distance carrier plans to upgrade the small carrier’s tracks for the heavier traffic counts, but thinks some of its through trains including intermodal from Pacific Ocean ports in Canada down to Memphis, Tenn., might save up to a day transiting Chicago when the changes are done.
Besides four roadway delays from its stopped trains, CN’s Washington, D.C.-based vice president for North American government affairs, Karen Borlaug Phillips, said two other incidents last month did not fit in the normal listings but also caused long delays at road crossings.
Still, CN was able to report further reductions in the total number of monthly train-caused roadway delays, to six in all during August from nine it reported in July and 10 in June.
CN also said the delays ranged from 21 to 29 minutes last month, while July included one about three times as long. But Phillips said a Sept. 3 delay in Barrington, Ill., that lasted 27 minutes included a school bus in the vehicles that were backed up waiting for trains to clear the crossing.
Eight trainmen who had been furloughed during the past year’s fall in traffic returned to work on the EJ&E line in August, CN said, besides six who returned in July.
Phillips also said CN expects to divert another train onto EJ&E tracks by the end of September or early October, which would be just the third time it added trains to the short line after taking over in February.
CN says it should take about three years to fully integrate EJ&E into its system.
Separately, CN said Sept. 14 that it reached a voluntary agreement with the Village of Hawthorn Woods, Ill., about 40 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, on how to mitigate the impact of its short line changes. CN will pay for noise relief measures, traffic signals and other initiatives as part of their deal.
That brings to 18 the number of accords it has reached with suburbs along the short line route in Illinois and Indiana, out of 33 in all. Remaining suburbs are still contesting the agreement before the STB and in federal court.